This semester, the first of my junior year at Franklin & Marshall College, I am fulfilling my humanities requirement by taking ENG273: Graphic Novels. Most people, when I tell them that I am taking this class, are become quite excited and interested that it's a class at F&M. They dive into how they wish they could have taken a class like that and eagerly ask what books we're reading. It's interesting to me how enthused they are when the topic is breached, as if they are taking the class vicariously through me.
Graphic novels are a very interesting medium. They fuse together words and pictures uniquely as I have never seen before. My first graphic novel was Alan Moore's Watchmen during my freshmen year of college. It was several months before the movie came out, and I am so glad that I read it before I watched it. Following that, I dove into Moore's Batman: The Killing Joke, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Vol.1, V for Vendetta, Spiegelman's MausI and Maus II, Bechdel's Fun Home, Miller's Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, and Seagle's It's a bird... . Each of these are absolutely amazing pieces of art and literature.
One of the best graphic novels I have read to date though is The Sandman series. Currently I have read volumes one through... seven or eight, I forget, but plan on finishing the series very soon. The best part of the series is how imaginative it is. Neil Gaiman has created concepts and realms beyond the wildest of some of our imaginations!
"There are seven beings that are not Gods, that existed before humanity dreamed of Gods, that will exist after the last God is dead. There are seven beings that exist because, deep in our hearts, we know that they exist."
I have long exhausted my supply of physical copies of Sandman unfortunately and have thus gone to reading the later volumes
online. This wonderful quote came from a site that was recommended to me to continue my reading (http://www.comicoo.com /sandman/index.htm). The series focuses on one of the seven Endless, as they are called, named Dream. Each endless has complete control over their realm, their plane of existence which intersects the planes on which all living things exist. Pretty wild, right? But they are not Gods. No, they are something very different.
The series starts with the capture and imprisonment of Dream in the twenties by a cult of magicians. Eventually Dream is able to escape but it is almost sixty years after his initial imprisonment, which have left dreamers in a constant flux of visions due to the chaos in the realm. The rest of the first volume follows dream searching the globe for three objects that were stolen from him in his absence.
Each volume after follows Dream or dreamers who interact with Dream, leading up to some grand series climax in the second to last volume. Unfortunately I haven't gotten there yet, but once I do I'll update and share my full review of the series with my avid two followers, who probably don't actually follow. To anyone reading, let me know you're out there.
The reason I love graphic novels is in their form. Combining literature and art into a medium that is greater than the sum of its parts is simply amazing to me. Sandman really stretches the limits of the medium just like Watchmen and Maus have done. The imagination within the panels are enthralling and just brilliant to read and look at.
Well I'm not exactly sure what this post was meant to really be about, other than me rambling about my love for comic books and graphic novels. I hope it was interesting and made someone read a good book.
So if you've been reading this invisible blog, you may have read my review of Inception. In it I said something to the effect that Inception was one of the best movies, if not the best movie, I have ever seen. Well... Scott Pilgrim vs. The World fits exactly into that same description.
I actually needed to see this movie twice before writing anything about it. There is so much in the film that it honestly feels like genuine comic book (or graphic novel for those who feel that comic book is degrading to the genre); every time you read it (or watch it), aspects of it feel new and undiscovered. It warrants a second viewing.
Scott Pilgrim is a seemingly average kid living in Toronto, Canada with his gay roommate Wallace and plays with his band, The Sex Bob-Omb (a play on words, bob-omb being a reference to items in The Super Mario Brothers games which resembles little black bombs with eyes and feet). The movie begins with Scott, age: 22, rating: awesome, dating a high school girl, Knives Chau. But not too long after the wonderful 8-bit Universal opening (which you can hear, but unfortunately not see, at the bottom of this post), Scott notices another girl, Ramona Flowers. After a quick break up with Knives, Scott attempts to woo Ramona. But Scott's in for a bit of a surprise. He must, in order to date Ramona, defeat her seven deadly exs. Comedy, action, and video game references ensue.
This film feels like the perfect trans-genetic mutation between an 8 or 16 bit video game and
a wicked awesome comic book. From the cartoons added in to animate Ramona's past boyfriends, to the retro (I loath using that word) video game tracks, to the "batman-style" sound text (you know, Bam!, Kapow!, Shazam!), this movie is dripping with pure fan-boy amazement. The visual is really the closest you could get to a comic without separating each shot into individual frames of a comic strip.
The visual, though, is only half of the picture. The dialog is so fresh and witty I was absolutely engaged the entire movie. And it all felt very natural. Nothing was too contrived or forced. If there was an awkward line the movie did a wonderful job at explaining the thought process behind it. Example: After Scott dumps Knives, she dyes her hair similar to Ramona's hair and
starts seeing Scott's friend, Young Neil, in an attempt to make Scott notice her. After they play at the club, Ramona sees knives across the bar and and asks who she is. Scott, panicking, tries to decided whether to say "I have to go pee" or "Who, her?" In Scott's mind we see a roulette wheel spinning landing right on the line between the two options. So what comes out is "I need to pee on her." The best thing is that he doesn't even realize what he said was out of the normal, but the audience can understand what's going on in his head. There are actually quite a few of these moments which make the movie very relatable since we've all had moments where we tried to say something but something else comes out.
The characters are another strong point of the film. Each person is fully committed to their character and they are all so fully developed. While I
have not yet read the books (though I plan on doing so very soon!), I have a clue that we can thank them for such wonderful and developed characters. Two particularly standout characters in the movie were Knives Chau and Ramona Flowers. Both of these were wonderfully portrayed by their respective actresses, Ellen Wong and Mary Elizabeth Winstead. But the character that stole quite a few scenes, I feel was Alison Pill, who portrayed Kim, the drummer of Sex B0b-Omb and an old girlfriend of Scott. I really have no idea how to describe her role. You really just have to see the movie.
Michael Cera is also pretty freaking good in this movie. One of the best roles I think I've ever seen him in. Why do I think that? I think it's because of the role. I feel that he's been stuck in the same role for five years now. This one allows him to be a bit more free with his character.... a bit more animated and emotional. I know a lot of people are getting tired of him, but this movie really is a nice change of pace for him.
The music compliments the visual so perfectly that I was actually compelled to buy some of the songs after seeing it a second time. So catchy are the tracks, I find myself humming them all the time. The final aspect of this film that brings everything together are the battle scenes. Yes, they are over the top. Yes, they are more than slightly unrealistic. But, it brings together everything this movie has.
The whole movie is one big metaphor.... well kinda. The whole fighting the seven evil exs are something every guy, and girl (though I enjoy that the movie focuses on the guy point of view) has to metaphorically deal with when dating someone new and special. You always feel the need to be the best person they've dated to date (pun). This movie really does a superb job at jumping into the mind of a twenty something guy entering a new relationship. Bravo. I cannot wait to read the books.
This is the 8-bit Universal opening at the beginning of the film. Unfortunately there is no version just yet that features the visual component to the clip. Sorry folks.
